y
was a scornful wave of the arm as he pressed on to join her.

Gard had an ample swim, and was dressed and sitting on a rock, when they
came leisurely in, and it seemed to him that never in his life had he
seen anything half so pretty as those shining coils of chestnut hair
with the sea-drops sparkling in them, and the bright energetic face
below, browned with sun and wind, rosy-brown now with her long swim, and
beaded like her hair with pearly drops.

As she swept along below, she gave just one quick up-glance, and then,
with completest ignorance of his presence, turned her head to Bernel and
chattered away to him with most determined nonchalance.

She and Bernel used the long effective side-stroke almost entirely, and
the little arm that flashed in and out so tirelessly was as white as the
garment that fluttered in wavy convolutions about the lithe little body
below.

Gard, as he watched her, felt like a discoverer of hidden treasure,
overwhelmed and intoxicated with the wonder of unexpected riches. He had
come to this wild little land of Sark after silver, and he said to
himself that he had found a pearl beyond price.

In a minute or two they were scrambling up the slope and flung
themselves down beside him for a rest, feeling the strain of unusual
exertion now that the brace and tonic of the water was off them.

"You are bold swimmers," said Gard.

"She's a fish in the water," said Bernel, "and she made me swim almost
as soon as I could walk."

"You see," said Nance, in her decisive little way, "many of our Sark men
won't learn to swim. They think it's mistrusting God. But that seems to
me foolish. Every man who goes down to the sea ought to be able to
swim--besides, it's terribly nice."

"Yes, surely, Sark men ought to be able to swim, and they have certainly
no lack of opportunity. But it's a dangerous coast for those who don't
know it. Look at that now," and he nodded to the foaming race in front
of them, between Breniere and a gaunt rocky peak which rose like a
mountain-top out of the lonely sea. "Why, it must be running five or six
miles an hour."

From where they sat the sea seemed perfectly calm, a level plain of
deepest blue, with pale green streaks under the rocks and dark purple
patches further out, its surface just furrowed with tiny wind-ripples,
and underneath, a long slow heave like the breathings of the spirit of
the deep. But, smooth as the blue plain seemed, wave met rock with roar
and